The present invention relates to a photofinishing apparatus for reproducing images, more particularly to a compact image reproducing apparatus that prints images, applies or fixes the images with a durable material and delivers those images in a finished full bleed cut print state with a minimization of media waste production.
Durability is a performance criterion that is expected by consumers of photographic prints. This criterion includes resistance to tearing, fading, water and chemical exposure plus numerous other factors. In the current state of the art, silver halide prints demonstrate a high degree of overall durability in relation to other printing methods such as ink jet and thermal dye diffusion. This fact is one of the reasons why other forms of photographic quality printing technologies are not completely supplanting the silver halide share of the market. However, these other technologies are rapidly improving durability through the addition of materials and processes.
One example of a non-silver halide printing process that produces a durable photographic quality print is the Kodak Picture Maker. The Kodak Picture Maker creates durable prints by using the same thermal dye diffusion printing process that is used to produce the image on the media. Specifically, this printing process is one in which dye is transferred from a donor ribbon to media by means of heating a thermal printhead while the printhead, donor ribbon and media are in mechanical contact. By performing this process in a serial fashion for three separate primary color patches (sometimes there is a fourth black patch) in a controlled manner, an image can be produced on the media. To ensure durability, this printing process is performed one more time except that instead of dye transfer, a continuous clear overcoat material is transferred to the media. This process is often referred to as peel-apart or thermal transfer overcoat (TTO).
A second example of a non-silver halide printing process that produces a durable photographic quality print is the Canon Hyperphoto. Patents associated with this type of process are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,832,984 and 4,785,313, as well as European Patents 0 858 905 A1 and 0 858 906 A1. In the Canon Hyperphoto case the original media has already been pre-coated with a special chemical layer prior to printing (actually done during the production of the media). This coating is designed such that during the ink jet printing process, the inks can penetrate the layer and stabilize on an ink-receiving layer below the special coating. The Canon Hyperphoto then uses a heated fuser to seal this top coating over the image after the print cycle is complete. This process is often referred to as incorporated since the durability material is already incorporated into the media prior to printing.
Both of these apparatuses produce prints that are quite acceptable to consumers both from an image quality and durability aspect. However, there still are issues to consider. For example, these technologies are slower at producing prints per unit of time (defined as productivity) than a comparable machine associated with silver halide technology. This is partly due to the fact that these printing processes are slower than silver halide printers, but in addition the need to apply a durable material involves another process which adds more time. Another issue is that these printing processes do not inherently produce full bleed prints, which is a standard within the photofinishing retail business. In fact, the prints produced by the two aforementioned printing systems have borders and require an additional manual or automated cutting process to produce full bleed finished prints. This course of action only exasperates the already low productivity just described. Therefore, there is a need to print with high productivity, still allow a durable material to be fixed or applied, and efficiently produce full bleed finished prints for printing systems such as ink jet and thermal dye diffusion to compete in the photofinishing market.
The solution to this need can utilize various strategic paths. One path that is being taken by numerous printer companies is to attack the need by increasing the speed of the base printing mechanism. For example, in the ink jet printing industry, there is an effort to increase the firing rate of print heads as well as the number of actuators or nozzles per print head in order to achieve higher speed addressing of media space. While this strategy makes sense, it does not preclude other less direct solution paths. For example, Capurso describes in European Patent 0 992 347 A2 a reservoir for collecting the excess ink that is sprayed outside of the media within an ink jet printer. This mechanism would thus allow full bleed prints to be more easily produced within a given printer architecture. One illustration of this would be to have a classic desktop ink jet printer working with a fixed width continuous roll of media. The printer could continually print out full bleed images that with a single chopper-cutting machine could easily turn these images into individual full bleed prints. The problem with this scenario is that this machine does not have the productivity that is anywhere close to what is expected in photofinishing sites. One could multiplex many of these machines but issues will exist in the areas of footprint, printer variation, durability application, and sorting.
Another form of indirect solution is to efficiently architecture all of the processes that take printed media and convert it into the finished full-bleed prints. These processes include the printing itself but also could include the durability fixing or application, drying, cutting and sorting. We define here that the processes other than the printing itself are post-print treatment processes. If these processes are architectured efficiently around the printing, then one should able to minimize the issues discussed throughout this section. For example, European Patent 0 703 497 A1 to B. A. Phillips et al offers an example of a cutting system that produces finished full-bleed prints. One basic drawback of European Patent 0 703 497 A1 is that the design is narrowed to a media segment with a fixed size plurality of images printed on the media segment. This is an issue in a system that must handle variable formats such as now exists with the advent of the Advanced Photo System (APS). The second drawback is that this system describes that it can do this cutting without producing any waste media byproduct. However, this assumption would be based on very precise image placement on the media segment and very precise cutting mechanisms. A third issue is that in a printing system that also requires a fixing or application of a durability material, the modular design of the cutter requires some interface to the durability mechanism. This interface is critical at meeting productivity and footprint criteria. Therefore, the intention of the invention is to describe a post print treatment system of a general architecture that minimizes most of the issues just stated. More specifically, the present invention relates to a photofinishing apparatus for reproducing images, more particularly to a compact image reproducing apparatus that prints images, applies or fixes the images with a durable material and delivers those images in a finished full bleed cut state with a minimization of media waste production.
An object of the present invention is to produce photographic quality durable full bleed images. By full bleed images, Applicant""s are referring to image or prints with no border or images that extend to the end of a print.
A further object of the invention to produce durable printed images with minimal waste of the media and durability materials.
A further object of the invention to minimize the time required in producing a customer order that comprises a plurality of the durable full bleed prints.
A further object of the invention is to complete multiple pending customer orders in minimum time.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for printing a plurality of images on media provided on a supply roll, with the media having a predetermined width. The apparatus comprises a printer that produces a media segment of variable length with a plurality of printed images.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided an apparatus for performing any post-print treatment functions resulting in the production of the full bleed durable prints. The apparatus comprises a drying station that removes a desired amount of water from the media segment; a durability station that performs all of the operations needed to apply or fix the durability material on the media segment; a cutting station that performs all of the operations required to cut the media segment into the full bleed durable prints; a sorting station that takes the full bleed durable prints and puts them into an arrangement which makes it easy for the full bleed durable prints to be returned to a customer; and a control computer and control electronics that performs all of the machine control for the drying, durability, cutting and sorting stations.
In accordance with a further feature of the invention the post-print treatment apparatus performs the processes in a manner that optimizes productivity while minimizing waste production.
The present invention therefore relates to a photofinishing apparatus which comprises a processing assembly for processing a plurality of images and producing a media segment having the images thereon; and a post-print treatment assembly provided in series with the processing assembly and adapted to at least apply a durable material onto the media segment.
The present invention further relates to a method of photofinishing which comprises the steps of processing a plurality of images and producing a media segment having the images thereon; and applying a durable material on the media segment.
The present invention further relates to a photofinishing apparatus which comprises: a film processor for processing rolls of film into negatives; a scanner for digitizing the negatives or other printed images into raw image data; an image data manager for processing the raw image data into processed image data; a printer for converting the processed image data into printed images on a media segment; and a post-print treatment processor for converting the media segment into photographic quality durable full bleed prints. The post-print treatment processor includes a dryer station for drying the media segment; a durability station for applying or fixing a durability material on the media segment; a cutting station for slitting and chopping the media segment into the photographic quality full bleed prints; a sorting station for sorting the photographic quality full bleed prints; and a control computer and control electronics for controlling the post-print treatment processor.
The present invention further relates to a photofinishing method which comprises the steps of scanning images to create image data representative of the scanned images; processing the image data to create processed image data; printing the processed image data to create printed images on a media segment; drying the media segment; applying or fixing a durability material on the media segment; slitting and chopping the media segment into photographic quality full bleed prints; and sorting the photographic quality full bleed prints
The present invention further relates to a post-print treatment processor for converting a media segment into photographic quality durable full bleed prints, which includes: a dryer station for drying the media segment; a durability station for applying or fixing a durability material on the media segment; a cutting station for slitting and chopping the media segment into the photographic quality full bleed prints; a sorting station for sorting the photographic quality full bleed prints; and a control computer and control electronics for controlling the post-print treatment processor.
The present invention further relates to a photofinishing apparatus which comprises a printing station for printing images on a media segment; and a finishing station for converting the media segment into durable full-bleed prints. The finishing station includes a durability station for applying or fixing a durability material on the media segment; and a cutting station for slitting and chopping the media segment into the photographic quality full bleed prints.
The present invention further relates to a photofinishing apparatus which comprises a processing assembly for processing images and producing a media segment having at least one image thereon; and a post-print treatment assembly provided in series with the processing assembly and adapted to at least apply a durable material onto the media segment and cut the media segment to produce a finished full bleed cut print.
The above and other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become more apparent from the accompanying detailed description thereof when considered in conjunction with the following drawings.